Vedado
Grid of tree-lined streets angled to catch the sea breeze, home to a landmark concrete tower once ranked among the world's tallest.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Vedado in Havana opens with a 1954 question structural engineers thought was reckless: could a concrete tower carry thirty-nine floors on load-bearing walls alone, no steel skeleton inside? It follows engineer Ernesto Gomez Sampera and Luis Saenz Duplace building the FOCSA on streets angled forty-five degrees to catch the sea breeze off the Malecon, with walls just thirty centimeters thick tying into a concrete lattice. Look at the corridors wrapping each floor, set apart from the building's core by a gap open to the air.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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